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Sunday, March 15, 2015

More Snow!

Well my happiness to quit a city that was about to face a snow storm did not last much longer. My flight from Indy to Chicago was uneventful but the next one was. I boarded the flight to Colorado Springs and within few minuets it was informed that due to a bad weather in Colorado Springs the airport was closed. A snow storm was heading there too. Soon there was a lot of dissatisfaction amongst the passengers. We ran to the Customer service and I was asked if Denver was an option. A minute earlier I did not want to take a risk of driving from Denver to Colorado Springs in a snow storm but somehow at that instance I thought it would be better than waiting at the airport until next day evening. So I took that and reached Denver at around midnight. It was snowing badly and that made me a little nervous. But I had to do what I had to and I still stood by my decision. The National car rental at Denver is pathetic. For some reason their computers did not work and they had confusion changing my reservation from that of Colorado Springs to Denver. They even told me that I had to return the car back in Denver. But I had to get a car anyways. So I took off in the storm. The GPS deviated from the usual route due to closed roads and brought me on Colorado 83 till Castleton. The road was deserted and pitch dark and till I saw the familiar rock formations of Castleton, I had no clue where I was heading. After a long drive that took double the time and half the speed than usual, I reached the hotel at around 2 AM.

My baggage had not arrived and I was told it would arrive COS in the next flight. But next day, I get a message that my baggage would be sent to Denver following my last flight change. So I went to the Colorado Springs airport and reported missing baggage. They told that they would get it delivered to my hotel. I verified at the National Car rental and they told me that I could return the car anywhere within 100 miles of the pickup point. Realising that I was charged extra for the car, I made another reservation and planned to return the current car next day. I knew that things were this easy here but for some reason the service at National car rental in Denver was pathetic and gave wrong information.

The entire week was cold and snow fall did not stop. However, I had lots of shopping to be done in preparation of return. Now it was four of us in Colorado Springs - Abdul, Rohit, Dilip and me. We hung out in one of our places; cooked and watched movies to kill time during the snowfall. We also went to the one dollar movie theatre to watch some recently released films like Interstellar and Mockingjay - Part 1.

We also tried some good restaurants but my favourite was Pueblo Veijo where I tried a tasty fajita. The vegetables were stir fried with a very tasty sauce. I would rank this as the best Mexican restaurant that I have been to in the US.

The last hotel that I stayed in was not that great. They had canned food for breakfast and thus I had to settle with Corn Flakes or had to make myself some fresh waffles.

I took a drive down the memory lane during my shoppings to the old apartment I had lived in, ten years ago. The apartment still looked the same except that they had changed the number of our apartment from 103 to 104. As advanced as we may think a country is, It also has its own share of superstition.

One weekend, we went to Denver. It was bright and warm that day. We went to a big fashion mall near Aurora and watched Badhlapur, a Hindi film at a theatre that had a long an - Untied Artist greenwood 18 something something.

Rest of the week was spent shopping. Colorado Springs looked beautiful as ever in the thin blanket of snow.